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Hiatus

Hi there! How's it going? It's been awhile, hasn't it? Well, maybe not for you, I guess. You can come and go at will, sampling the wares that I've put out. But for me it's been awhile. And if this space is the only mechanism you use to keep up with my life, then you may have noticed that there has been a gap of somewhere around six months where you haven't heard from me.
I used to get all apologetic about not keeping up with blogging, and I know that the tendency to apologize is still very strong in me, but I won't be apologizing today. There's too much ground to cover.
I figured I'd use this post to update you all on what I've been up to for the past six months. That is a lot to go over, so I'll just throw some things together all point-form, and let you figure out what you want to read more about.

Writing

You will notice that my 20to41 blog challenge didn't go as planned. I wrote some stories, but the goal itself was really ambitious - a full-sized story every day for nearly three weeks just wasn't going to work, between my job and my family, and all of that. But I did get some new stories, so the challenge, while not a complete success, also was not a complete failure. And it did give me the inspiration to try a different writing-themed challenge, which I did successfully complete: 30 bite-sized pieces of writing in 30 days. I haven't shared it here, obviously, but I've thought about it, and they'll probably show up here at some point.
I've also started writing the second part of a book series I started with 2015's NaNoWriMo, and I've sketched out some plans for the rest of the series.
I also wrote a short story in a morning, which still needs a polish, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up here sometime soon.

Injury

In May, Kim was injured playing derby. She broke her ankle, and was off her feet for seven weeks. That definitely put a different spin on the summer for us. I was allowed to work from home while Kim went through the worst of her convalescence. She is most of the way back from her injury, and is already back to playing derby.

Work

Shortly before Kim got injured, my project at work was cancelled, and I was relegated to fixing stuff up on the old project. I thought a little bit about leaving the company then, and even went as for as to meet with Jim, my old boss from Intuit, who was looking for people to come over to Investopedia. In the middle of that is when Kim broke her ankle, and I put Jim off to focus on Kim's recovery. Fast-forward a couple of months, and I just did't see things getting better - I didn't see the prospect for it either, so I interviewed at Investopedia and started my position there last week. I'm disappointed that I couldn't make things work at Intelliwave, but I'm mostly over that now, and happy to be at Investopedia.

Derby

Right around the last time I posted here, I decided I would become a roller derby referee. There was a need for them, especially for the juniors, where my daughters play, and I thought it would be fun to skate. I was right, and I wanted to take the next step, so now I've just passed the fundamentals program, and I'm benchmarked to play full-contact roller derby. I played in my first game last week, and while I wasn't spectacular, I definitely felt like I belonged.

That's it for now, a nice, tidy recap of my last six months.

I don't think it'll be six months before my next post. I do have all that fiction I can post up here, and I do want to be more active in this space.